UX Books for non-UX people

“If you create digital products, you have a responsibility to make them easy to use.” – Whitney Hess

She’s absolutley right, we do. The UX community embraces this idea. It champions a very worthy cause. Making products work better for people. And it’s a great community for sharing it’s expertise. Loads of great blogs, conference podcasts and our very own Dr Phil (Jared Spool, god bless ya).

But what about the other folk who are involved in creating digital products? Developers, product and project managers, technical writers, marketers and so on. I work in the UK as an independent consultant and a lot of companies I work with have little or no UX budget or experience. This leads to a lot of evangalizing on my part. Generally people get it, they see the value in focusing the design of a product around it’s users and they get enthused about the techniques I’ve introduced. But what happens when that ‘preachy designer’ bloke has moved on. Who has the responsibility to ensure these products keep being easy to use.

We do. So whenever I leave a project now I always buy the team a present. A book that will go part way to help fill that gap and act as a constant reminder that products fail if the user is ignored. Here is a few I’ve bought for (or recommended to) projects I’ve been working on.

Don’t make me think – Steve Krug
No real surprise here. We’ve all read it and we all know just how good it is. And it’s plain speaking communicates it message to
For: Anyone involved in the production of a web site or application

The Non-Designer’s Design Book – Robin Williams
As I mentioned, I’ve worked in companies where they still have no UI specialists on projects and developers (your OO C#/Java variety) find themselves forced into making UI decisions. Robin Williams’ book gives a simple and rounded introduction to the principles of visual design.For: Developers, Marketers, Product managers

Web Forms Design: Filling in the blanks – Luke WroblewskiThe same reason as above. A great book to inform design decisions for anyone involved in the design and development of web forms. There is a rarely a week goes by where I don’t stick it under the nose of a developer or marketeer. It’s my current weapon of choice.For: Developers, Marketers, Customer service

Elements of user experience – Jesse James Garrett
As Montell Jordan once sang “This is how we do it, Adaptive Path does it like nobody does…”. Or something similar. For those project managers who have never heard of User Experience this is where to start.For: Project managers

Observing the User Experience – Mike Kuniavsky
It’s very rare a projects doesn’t have a clear idea of business requirements or technical constraints. However, the same can’t be said for an understanding of user needs. But how do we discover the user needs I hear you ask? From Mike Kuniavsky book on observing and listening to the people who will use your product. Easy. Buy it. Now.
For: Business Analysts, Product managers

Designing the obvious – Robert Hoekman Jr.
Just good old fashioned common sense.
For: Product managers, Developers

Letting go of the words – Janice (Ginny) Redish
A good copywriter is worth their weight in gold. Words can make or break a design. Don’t underestimate this aspect of a users experience.
For: Marketing, Customer Services, Technical writers

Getting Real – 37 Signals
Though not a UX specific book, Getting Real goes along way to describing how to create usable and compelling applications. It changed the way I look at application development and made my job so much more rewarding because of the advice they offer.For: Project managers, Product managers

I’m sure this list will grow. In fact I hope it does. If you know of other books let me know and I’ll add to the list.

Keep spreading the word. Peace. Out.

[UPDATE: Thinking about extending this to include blog posts, podcasts, presentations. UX resources for non-UX people instead. All recommendations welcome.]

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And you are?

I'm Craig Melbourne. I work with User Interfaces. Researching, prototyping, testing and building. I like it. I've been doing it for 10 years for some people you will have heard of (BBC, NME) and some you may have not (Bango, 7 Digital). Email craig at gooeylab.com